Chris Harris hopes Broncos will re-sign him

Broncos cornerback Chris Harris wants to return for the 2020 NFL season.

Broncos cornerback Chris Harris is in Miami this week for media row at the Super Bowl. On Thursday, he spoke with KOA’s Alfred Williams and JoJo Turnbeaugh about his looming free agency.

The hosts asked Harris if he could return to Denver for the 2020 season.

“Man, I hope so,” Harris said, via Anthony Rodriquez of KOA Radio. “It’d be great to finish here. But hey, we gotta talk to everybody. We gotta see what’s gonna be the best fit for me, who’s gonna use me the right away, and take it from there.”

Harris was then asked if there’s a possibility of him signing a contract extension with Denver before free agency begins in March.

“Yeah, I think so,” Harris said. “I think if they came serious and came with it, definitely. I don’t see why it couldn’t [get done].”

Harris, 30, totaled 56 tackles, broke up six passes, grabbed one interception and forced one fumble last season. He has recorded 518 tackles, 4.5 sacks and 20 interceptions since joining the Broncos as a college free agent out of Kansas in 2011.

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Rob Gronkowski admits he lost a step in his final season with Patriots

“I 100 percent lost a step (last year). I actually lost like three steps in some games.”

Rob Gronkowski was visibly hurting in his final season with the New England Patriots.

After capping off 2018 with a Super Bowl victory, he quickly made the decision to retire. He’s toyed with the idea of making a return, but he’s also shut it down adamantly. Since retirement, he joined FOX Sports as an analyst and has made appearances in countless events.

Gronkowski has thoroughly enjoyed his retirement and the recovery time it’s allowed him to have. He joined the Barstool Podcast on Thursday and spoke about the physical condition he was during his final season.

He finished the season with 72 catches, 682 yards and three touchdowns in 13 regular season games. Gronkowski’s most explosive game in the postseason was in the Super Bowl, where he recorded six catches for 87 yards.

Gronkowski was 28 years old at the time of his retirement and he’s made it clear that his body wouldn’t allow him to dominate in a way he was used to.

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4 impending free agents Colts should watch in Super Bowl LIV

Colts should watch these players in Super Bowl LIV.

The big game is almost here. When the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs battle it out in Miami for the Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl LIV, the whole world will be watching.

That includes the Indianapolis Colts, who have already begun preparing for the offseason. Part of that preparation is finding out which free agents to go after when the new league year begins in March. There are a few they should keep an eye on during the big game.

Here are four impending free agents the Colts should watch in Super Bowl LIV:

Mark Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

DT Chris Jones, Kansas City Chiefs

The Colts desperately need help at the interior defensive line position and Jones will be one of the biggest free-agent targets across the entire league. How invested the Colts will be this offseason remains to be seen, but Jones should be one of their top priorities.

Though he didn’t have an elite season, Jones was solid in most regards. Where it matters most, he recorded 9.0 sacks. That would be a huge boost to the Colts defense from the three-technique. Even with his size (6’6, 310), he could side over and play some nose tackle if needed as well.

The Colts got close to nothing with their interior pass rush and Chris Ballard has made it clear that is the position that drives the defense. If Jones hits the market, he should be one of the top targets.

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Clues during Super Bowl week hinting at Tagovailoa, Dolphins marriage

There are some breadcrumbs being dropped this week that seem to indicate the Dolphins and Tua Tagovailoa are on a collision course.

The Miami Dolphins have been tied to Alabama quarterback prospect Tua Tagovailoa since last January. When the team announced it was going to conduct a rebuild, the reported target on the other side was Tagovailoa. When the Dolphins bombed their first two games of the 2019 season, it was supposedly all in the name of Tagovailoa. When Tagovailoa went down with a brutal hip injury, who was the team to show up with their full leadership group at Alabama’s bowl game? The Dolphins — with Stephen Ross and Chris Grier present on the sidelines.

Never mind the slew of mock drafts that have pegged these two together — that’s nothing new, either.

But Super Bowl week has brought a bombardment of clues that this marriage may actually be waiting in the wings. Just yesterday, three separate nuggets dropped that seemed to indicate Tua and his party — including his family and agent, Leigh Steinberg, are all pulling to see the selection in Miami materialize.

First, Steinberg threw the Bengals under the bus when talking to ESPN 97.3 about whether or not he wants Tagovailoa to get drafted #1 overall to Cincinnati.

“You want to make sure your client ends up with a good organization…I hope Cincy falls in love with Joe Burrow,” said Steinberg.

Oh. Well in that case, go ahead and scratch off any fleeting anticipation you might have had that Tua would get a clean medical and leapfrog Burrow late in the process. But still, that doesn’t provide any further clarity on where Steinberg would like to see Tagovailoa play. But Tua’s father Galu certainly did. A producer from Fox Sports 640 told the elder Tagovailoa that he hoped Tua was drafted by the Dolphins. Galu’s response?

“So do we.”

And Tua himself helped throw some fuel on the fire with his gracious words for the city of Miami yesterday during his media availabilities. And during a session with the Miami Herald, Tagovailoa was asked for what message he would deliver Dolphins fans.

“I can’t promise anyone anything because I don’t know if I’m even going to get picked by the Dolphins. People love to trade up; they can trade up to two or three. The Dolphins could trade down for all we know,” said Tagovailoa.  “If I have the opportunity, I would be honored and privileged (to play for the Dolphins). Like Lamar Jackson said, ‘you guys would have to get a Super Bowl out of me.'”

A far departure from the “woe is us” mentality some shared in September about the Dolphins — when Dolphins fans were worried their team was so dysfunctional that Tagovailoa would pull an “Eli Manning” and strong-arm his way out of playing for Miami.

Expect this hype train to pick up steam — we’ve got a lot of offseason left in front of the draft.

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Report: Norv Turner won’t return to Panthers in 2020

Former Panthers offensive coordinator Norv Turner will not return to the team’s coaching staff in 2020.

Former Panthers offensive coordinator Norv Turner will not return to the team’s coaching staff in 2020, according to a report by Jourdan Rodrigue at the Athletic. Turner turned over play-calling duties to his son Scott after Ron Rivera’s firing. Scott will be following Rivera to Washington, but it wasn’t clear until now if Norv would be retained in any role on Matt Rhule’s staff.

The Turners have already been replaced by Joe Brady, who was LSU’s passing game coordinator this past season after spending two years on Sean Payton’s staff with the Saints.

Turner got a lot of criticism during his run in Carolina, but we think he actually did his job well. To some extent, he helped modernize a dinosaur-aged offense and when he had Cam Newton healthy they were capable of competing with any team in the league.

Unfortunately, Newton was only truly himself for about eight of the 28 games Turner was the OC.

Considering the pass protection and the level of quarterback play Turner had to work with, he did a solid job and he should land on his feet.

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Gerald Meerschaert vs. Deron Winn added to UFC 248

A middleweight matchup between Gerald Meerschaert and Deron Winn is the latest addition to UFC 248.

A pair of middleweights are headed to Las Vegas.

[autotag]Gerald Meerschaert[/autotag] (30-12 MMA, 5-4 UFC) will take on [autotag]Deron Winn[/autotag] (6-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) at UFC 248. Both men are looking to get back in the win column.

UFC 248 takes place March 7 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and early prelims on UFC Fight Pass/ESPN+.

After a 4-1 start to his UFC tenure, Meerschaert has had some octagon inconsistencies. He has dropped three of his past four fights. In his most recent outing, he lost a split decision to Eryk Anders at UFC on ESPN+ 19.

American Kickboxing Academy’s Winn suffered his first pro loss when he was edged out by Darren Stewart at UFC on ESPN 6 in October.

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With the addition, the latest UFC 248 lineup includes:

  • Champ Israel Adesanya vs. Yoel Romero – for middleweight title
  • Champ Zhang Weili vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk – for women’s strawweight title
  • Derek Brunson vs. Edmen Shahbazyan
  • Max Griffin vs. Alex Oliveira
  • Li Jingliang vs. Neil Magny
  • Sean O’Malley vs. Jose Quinonez
  • Saparbek Safarov vs. Rodolfo Vieira
  • Austin Hubbard vs. Mark Madsen
  • Polyana Viana vs. Emily Whitmire
  • Danaa Batgerel vs. Guido Cannetti
  • Beneil Dariush vs. Drakkar Klose
  • Jared Cannonier vs. TBA
  • Gerald Meerschaert vs. Deron Winn

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Carson Palmer suggests Bengals weren’t trying to win a Super Bowl

Carson Palmer wasn’t kind to the Bengals in a new interview.

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Carson Palmer interviews always drive plenty of emotions through the Cincinnati Bengals fansbase.

Palmer gets asked questions, which assuredly includes the Bengals, Palmer answers those questions truthfully — for better or worse.

Earlier in the week, Palmer had heaped praise on both Joe Burrow and Duke Tobin.

But in a different interview during Super Bowl week, Palmer sat down and dived a bit into why he ended up leaving the Bengals and forcing his trade, according to CBS Sports’ Damon Amendolara:

“That’s why I wanted out: I never felt like the organization was really trying to win a Super Bowl and really chasing the Super Bowl. Because that’s what today’s day and age is. The game today is you can’t just hope you draft well and not go after free agents and you just end up in the Super Bowl. You gotta go get it.

“And when the organization is completely behind doing what it takes to win, and you’ve got the right players, then that’s the recipe for a Super Bowl. When you’ve got good players but you’re not really forcing everybody in the organization’s hand to do what we can to be better, to do what we can to win a Super Bowl, that’s the difference in the NFL. You look at what Bob Kraft’s done, you look at the teams that have had success year in and year out. You look at what goes on in Baltimore. I mean, that team is always good. That team is doing whatever it takes. They are willing to do whatever it takes to win and that’s why they’re consistently in the playoffs regardless of who their quarterback is.”

That’s…not going to play well with many Bengals fans. Palmer has been very open in the past that he went to Mike Brown and demanded certain things such as the team hiring a general manager and simply modernizing. He didn’t feel like those things happened. And clearly, he felt those things were happening elsewhere.

Granted, the counterargument here is simple: After Palmer left, the Bengals went to the playoffs multiple times with Andy Dalton.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe Palmer was a wake-up call of sorts for the organization. And the one big overarching thing here is seemingly having the luxury to build a roster around a rookie quarterback’s cheap contract.

Which loops in another reality — some years teams just aren’t going all-in to win a Super Bowl. It’s a business and some years are transition years or otherwise, though teams would never say it out loud. That’s just how it goes.

Palmer has his feelings on this matter publicly and the other party (the Bengals) doesn’t speak on it often. His one-sided accounts tend to split the fanbase, as this one will, too. Perhaps the ultimate gage of this will reveal itself depending on how the Bengals respond this offseason to having the first pick and restarting around a rookie passer.

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Report: Giants to hire Sean Spencer as defensive line coach

The New York Giants are expected to hire Penn State defensive line coach Sean Spencer to that same role.

The New York Giants had initially agreed to bring Freddie Roach on as their defensive line coach, but he ultimately decided to return to Ole Miss and then jet off to Alabama for the 2020 season.

That put the Giants and head coach Joe Judge in a bit of a rough spot, forcing them to go back out into the field to find a replacement.

That replacement has now been located.

Matt Lombardo of NJ Advance Media reports that the Giants are expected to hire Penn State defensive line coach Sean Spencer to fill that same role.

The Giants have hired former Penn State defensive line coach Sean Spencer to fill the same role on Joe Judge’s coaching staff, an individual with knowledge of the team’s plans tells NJ Advance Media.

Spencer has spent the last six year at Penn State coaching the defensive line under James Franklin, whom he had worked with previously while at Vanderbilt (2011-2013). Prior to that, he had made stops Bowling Green, Massachusetts, Hofstra and Villanova, among others.

This will be the first time Spencer coaches at the NFL level.

Spencer brings a real “dog” mentality to the Giants, earning the nickname “Coach Chaos” during his time in Happy Valley, while calling his crew — you guessed it — “Wild Dogs.”

Under Spencer’s watch, the Nittany Lions have consistently had one of the country’s best defensive line, which produced 45 sacks a season ago. They have recorded 40 or more sacks for five consecutive years.

Spencer is likely the final piece to the Giants’ brand new coaching staff. An announcement on all of the hires is imminent.

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Jets free agent profile: What to do with LB Albert McClellan?

Here’s how the Jets should approach Albert’s McClellan’s free agent situation.

Before Joe Douglas can focus on who he plans to target in free agency come March, he’ll have a handful of in-house decisions to make.

The Jets have 32 players set to hit the open market this offseason. Some don’t figure to factor into New York’s plans for 2020, while it’s safe to assume the Jets would like to keep others around for a while. Either way, Douglas has a lot of work to do in his first offseason on the job.

Albert McClellan was signed by the Jets in the middle of August before being released during cuts. The Jets did re-sign him the next day, though. McClellan’s season was cut short after he suffered a concussion and was placed on injured reserve. So the Jets didn’t get to see a whole lot of tape on him. Let’s evaluate McClellan’s free agent situation in another edition of Jets Wire’s free agent profile.

Pros of keeping him

The Jets signed McClellan to be a depth piece after the team lost Avery Williamson for the season to a torn ACL. He was immediately thrown into the fire at the beginning of the regular season after the Jets lost C.J. Mosley as well. McClellan didn’t make much of an impact though, only recording five total tackles in five games.

The 33-year-old is an NFL veteran with some starting experience, so if the Jets want to have depth in case any of their inside linebackers go down again, then bringing back McClellan wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Cons of keeping him

At this point in his career, McClellan is not an every-down starter. He hasn’t been for a few years. If the Jets are in a situation where they need him to start, can he handle it? The answer to that question is unknown, but at 33 years old the odds don’t lean in his favor.

Since the Jets do need to get younger, it wouldn’t make much sense to bring McClellan back for another season.

The verdict

Given McClellan’s age and the fact that he’s coming off a concussion, he isn’t likely to be retained by Gang Green. The Jets showed last season that they had enough linebacker depth without McClellan in the fold.

Douglas doesn’t need to do that much in the offseason with inside linebackers. They’ll get Mosley and Blake Cashman back from injuries. They have a decision to make on Avery Williamson and they’ll likely want Neville Hewitt and James Burgess back, too.

All in all, McClellan will be likely one and done with the Jets.